VMAQ-1 Banshees

Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 1 (VMAQ-1) "Banshees" · USMC · 1992

Worn on a WesPac deployment in 1992 by GySgt R. White, this patch marks the birth of the Banshees: on 1 July 1992 VMAQ-2's Detachment X-ray — then forward-deployed to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan — was recommissioned as Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 1, taking the EA-6B Prowler and the electronic-warfare mission with it. The new squadron chose the banshee, the Irish spirit whose wail foretells a death, and the Gaelic motto "Tairngreacht Bas" — "Death Foretold" — a fitting emblem for crews who hunt and blind an enemy's radars before the strike arrives. This variant dresses that banshee in samurai kabuto and armor against a rising sun, a deployment-made nod to the squadron's Japanese home before it returned to MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, in November 1992.